Aftermarket Cruise Control

[???]

Originally Posted by Silveredwings

3. A solenoid (pneumatic? or electric?) clamps (pinches) the existing throttle cable in whatever position it's in when you press lock. The lock is kept on by latching relay or flip-flop. Auto release could be the same as in #2. Fail-safe mode is off.

A disc on the throttle shaft and electromagnet that locks to that?

?

[Raccoonjoe]

Originally Posted by Silveredwings

2. A cruise control with no speed-following feedback. So when you press the 'lock' button, it samples your speed and the servo sets the throttle in that position until the controller releases it by braking, pressing a stop button, putting in the clutch, or (if you have a gas pedal switch) step on the gas.

This is the dragon that I've been chasing. However, I've got a series of wires leading to the factory CC that I can't figure out....nobody can tell me what each wire does. I was thinking of wiring them to a switch....so I could turn the speed sensitivity on/off.

hrmmmm....might have to stop by the Jeep dealer on lunch

[trollgods]

i know this thread is OLD but i was reading it and wanted to add my thots

IMHO anyone attempting to do a THROTTLE LOCK is a DANGEROUS person an should not be allowed to touch things in their car. A cruise control although more expensive is SAFER than a manual or electric/electronic throttle lock. A throttle lock is going to be worse than a bad cruise unless you drive on ANYTHING but the MOST LEVEL roads, your car will lose speed up the slightest hills and could accellerate madly down hills , it is potentially suicidal if it gets stuck unless you are a VERY quick thinker and know to shut your car OFF and coast to the side of the road to a stop. a throttle lock will NOT work on a "drive by wire car" unless you jak it to the pedal itself if u were so inclined.


Ive been installing cruises for over 18 yrs now in Ontario Canada, most cruise installs can be done for about $450 some more expensive depending on the cost of the SWITCH used. I would reccomend just about any rostra cruise they have been doing it a long time. they took over the cruise control division of hayes dayna many years ago. the BEST model for cars with a throttle cable assembly tyype of throttle should use the 250-1316 all electrick cruise, it is the cats azz, and then use the appropriate switch for your car. Not all cruises by rostra are created equal nor are all cars. some cars are more difficult to maintain speed with, ie Jeeps, performance cars like corvettes/trans ams of the 80s and 90s. using the cheapest cruise servo in particular servos that use vacuum are harder to maintain speed on these trickier cars. cruises that dont work right from rostra either were not installed
in such a way as to maximize its performance OR possily a less capable unit was used for the application. if someone tells you your toyota does not produce enuff vacuum for the cruise to work right and can not fix it or give you your money back either does not care about their work OR does not use the right product for the job, ie, if i used to cheaper cruise modell to max my profit and it dint work right i would then have to EAT my profit and upgrade it to a more expensive unit which would include removeing the improperly functioning unit and replacing it with the better unit, and if that dint fix the issue i would have to give ur money back.


ive done cruises on early 90s VW diesels to hondas (usually a pain) toyotas (usually not bad to do) motorhomes (always a pain to do), even early 90s c class benz (PAIN) to many other domestic and imports up to and including some 2008 gm vehicles, and there have only been a few vehicles that WOULD not work right with the right gear, one of which was a 90 sumthin trans am GM performance edition car with a VERY sensitive throttle, we just couldnt get the cruise to not surge cuz the throttle was too sensitive to the slightest adjustment. if i had had the 250-1316 cruise avail then it MIGHT have worked but it wasnt invented yet. i had a jeep yj once as well and it would just not work well either, i think it was the 4.2l motor, but again if the 250-1316 was avail then it could of worked too.

the reason a toyota dealer wants so much money to install the cruise is that they use a tech to do it and not a proper installer, and they r not used to doing it and they usually dont like doing it. so they gotta pay a tech and satill make money on his labour.

rostra makes cruise FOR audiovox. they r just rebranded, and in CANADA audiovox IS the distributor for rostra products as a general rule.

cruises done on car with an actual throttle ARE like rocket science, cuz if they r done wrong someone could get killed.

cruises on a drive by wire car CAN be rocket science cuz if you do it wrong you could damage an expensive computer in ur car.

if you have good mechanical skills and electrical/electronic skills and are comfortable working and modifying your vehicle go for it. if ur not comfortable dont do it. bad things can happen if not done right. use COMMON SENSE and make sure that if something fails it can not cause your throttle to stick at W.O.T. cuz that can be scary and unnerving.


anyway thats my $0.02 cad on the matter

[Jay2TheRescue]

I had an aftermarket cruise installed on my old 74 Chevy. It was pretty simple. I had one wire hooked to the distributor, one to the ignition, and one to ground. Hooked the servo to the carb, and spliced into a vacuum line. After about an hour of road testing I had it adjusted almost perfectly. The only time it didn't hold the speed well was under 40 MPH, but on the highway it worked very well.

-Jay

[trollgods]

Originally Posted by Jay2TheRescue

I had an aftermarket cruise installed on my old 74 Chevy. It was pretty simple. I had one wire hooked to the distributor, one to the ignition, and one to ground. Hooked the servo to the carb, and spliced into a vacuum line. After about an hour of road testing I had it adjusted almost perfectly. The only time it didn't hold the speed well was under 40 MPH, but on the highway it worked very well.

-Jay

gone r those days, but i do have to ask how did the cruise shut down ? unless u hooked to the brake cct you would have to manually switch it off to stop it? and something like that would not wrk on todays cars with distributorless ignition systems nor would it work on drive by wire systems. to obtain road speed signal you typically have to tie to a VSS signal from either the PCM or the transmission speed sensor.

the factory cruise on my old early 80s cars had what was called a transducer, that had the speedo cable come into it and then out to the speedo head and inside it were the valves that controlled the vacuum diaphragm which controlled the throttle. on the 81 park ave you had no accel feature but did have resume and coast, now on the slightly later model 83 olds they did have accel/resume/coast features.


one thing i shoulda added earlier is that IMHO cruise control does not inherrently save gas, except for those who tend to accel and decel all the time, you know the ones who r passing you one minute then the next ur passing them cuz they cant hold a constant speed. it may halp a wee bit in conserving fuel but also lets you concentrate MORE on the road and LESS on the speedo/tach which can make for a safer and less fatigueing drive.

there was an episode of the british car show TOP GEAR where the one host Jeremy Clarkson was driving a Audi??? and trying to get a certain amount of mileage out of the car that the manufacturer claimed it could get. HE DID IT but was extremely mentally fatigued after doing so. just a thot anyway.

[Jay2TheRescue]

Originally Posted by trollgods

gone r those days, but i do have to ask how did the cruise shut down ? unless u hooked to the brake cct you would have to manually switch it off to stop it? and something like that would not wrk on todays cars with distributorless ignition systems nor would it work on drive by wire systems. to obtain road speed signal you typically have to tie to a VSS signal from either the PCM or the transmission speed sensor.

the factory cruise on my old early 80s cars had what was called a transducer, that had the speedo cable come into it and then out to the speedo head and inside it were the valves that controlled the vacuum diaphragm which controlled the throttle. on the 81 park ave you had no accel feature but did have resume and coast, now on the slightly later model 83 olds they did have accel/resume/coast features.


one thing i shoulda added earlier is that IMHO cruise control does not inherrently save gas, except for those who tend to accel and decel all the time, you know the ones who r passing you one minute then the next ur passing them cuz they cant hold a constant speed. it may halp a wee bit in conserving fuel but also lets you concentrate MORE on the road and LESS on the speedo/tach which can make for a safer and less fatigueing drive.

there was an episode of the british car show TOP GEAR where the one host Jeremy Clarkson was driving a Audi??? and trying to get a certain amount of mileage out of the car that the manufacturer claimed it could get. HE DID IT but was extremely mentally fatigued after doing so. just a thot anyway.

Ummm, yes. I did forget to mention there was one wire that got connected to the brake light switch on the brake pedal. It was about 15 years ago that I installed that thing. I forgot who made it exactly. I know the model number was ZT-12, because it was prominently displayed on the box. I think it was Cal Custom, or Custom Hawk? Any of these ring a bell as an aftermarket producer of cruise controls in the 80's?

My 1980 Bonneville and my 81 Regal both have the transducer as you describe with the speedo cable running through them. The Bonneville only had a "Set" button on the end of the turn signal. Pressing this button set the speed. Holding it in would coast till you release it, and then hold the new speed. Quickly tapping the set button while traveling at the set speed would increase the set speed by 1 mph. The only way to turn it off was to tap the brake. The Regal is very similar, but it has the resume feature, and you can turn off the unit without tapping the brake. No Accelerate function is advertised on this one as well, but if you quickly tap the set button your set speed would go up by 1 mph.

I think my tap up 1 mph is just a byproduct of how the units operated. They always seemed to set 1 mph faster than you were going when you set it. I remember setting the cruise at 54, so I could cruise at 55. When you're going at 55, and tap set again it bumps up to 56.

[QDM]

I have one of the Audiovox units on my 93 Swift. Installed it myself. Works great. Very nice on trips. Used to have a similar one on my 93 Toyota pickup but it failed after working fine for 14 years. I believe it was an Equus brand.

Q

[GasSavers_Erik]

I have the Audiovox CCS100- its worked great for the past 1.5 years. I put the same model on someone's truck 1 year ago and they love it too. At the time, it was about $100.

[JESSE69]

Any of you use those various CC's from JCWhitney.com?

[trollgods]

some of that stuff at jc whitneys site is rostra or branded audiovox, they would be decent units but an all electric unit would be the best performer, some of what they show is SCS friggette cruise controls, which is a company that does manufacture some OEM application cruises, as well as aftermarket units, PERSONALLY i never really liked the SCS stuff, ive not used it in years but it just never worked as well nor did the switches look nearly as nice nor were they as nice to install as the rostra products. IMHO they also seem to charge WAAYY too much money for those units. one price they show is like $599 and thats not installed, that would prolly be what i would charge for a gm truck or van with a factory original cruise switch which is also your entire turnsignal lever/ wiper switch.
check this link out
http://www.etaag.com/items/item156.htm
thats rostras most expensive cruise control servo, it does not include a switch, its a more reasonable price than some of the whitney stuff, let yall in on a little secret, theres about $100 profit on that unit from etaag dont tell anyone i said so tho